


It's Been So Long, And Now I'm Finally Free

by AnAceOfHearts



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alex's Pink Suit, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Based on a Tumblr Post, Caleb's stamp, Episode: s01e09 Stand Tall, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Scene: The Orpheum Performance 2020 (Julie and The Phantoms), So much angst, The Hollywood Ghost Club (Julie and The Phantoms), Willie Loves Alex Mercer (Julie and The Phantoms), Willie POV, Willie-centric (Julie and The Phantoms), for once im writing about a CANON gay ship and I love, it's very description heavy bc it's mostly just about willie and his angst, thats not a tag and that should be a crime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:40:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28442553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnAceOfHearts/pseuds/AnAceOfHearts
Summary: Before he met Alex, Willie was perfectly happy to spend his afterlife skating through lifers and in museums during the day and dance in the club during the nights. But then Alex came crashing through his life, and suddenly he wanted more, he knew he could have more. He had love, now, and he didn’t want to go back.~~~Alternatively: Willie's POV of what happened when Alex, Luke, and Reggie left the Hollywood Ghost Club for the Orpheum and the events afterwards.
Relationships: Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 101





	It's Been So Long, And Now I'm Finally Free

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this Tumblr post](https://willies-skateboard.tumblr.com/post/638342025536749569/whatever-you-do) by my friend Blue. I said I'd write it a whileeee ago but here we are \\_("/)_/.
> 
> Blue made this post and I was just immediately like ooh can I write this and she said yes so I wrote half of it in one night and then the rest over a few more days. I'm actually really happy how this turned out for my first fic for this fandom (well ok I have like a fic for each fandom I'm in, but this is the first jatp fic I've ever written, so).
> 
> Title is from Finally Free, of course ( ~~and not Green Day for once wow go me~~ )

Willie watched as Caleb made - _forced_ \- Alex and his bandmates into playing with him on stage. He didn’t know something as seemingly small as a performance could make him physically hurt, but the fist that closed around his heart when Alex poofed onstage, drumming against his own will, proved him otherwise. And the tight fist didn’t go away until Alex, Luke, and Reggie poofed away after their performance, away from Caleb and the Hollywood Ghost Club - and away from _him_. Instead, it was replaced with an overwhelming wave of sorrow when he realized that _he was never going to see Alex again_. Either he crossed over after his Orpheum performance, or he was shocked out of existence by Caleb’s jolts, and both ways, he would never see Alex again. The sorrow swallowed him, and he pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face in them. Alex Mercer, the ghost he only just met and was already hopelessly in love with, was gone forever. 

The sobs wracked his body, and he knew he couldn’t stay there. Not in the club, the last place he saw him, the place where he learned he was going to lose him forever, the place owned by the ghost that was responsible for taking Alex away from him. He teleported away without a word to anyone. If Caleb was pissed that he left, what was he going to do about it? Shock him until he came back? Somehow, somewhere inside of him, he knew that was never going to work. He had a taste of something so much better, of love, and he couldn’t imagine going back and pretending Alex never existed. Not anymore.

When he opened his eyes and looked around, he found himself on top of the Orpheum’s marquee. _God,_ the absolute _last_ place he wanted to be. All his memories of this place - now, at least - were of Alex, of Alex and his friends sitting on top of the marquee, of saying goodbye to Alex under this very sign.

He teleported again, and before he knew it, he was in the Orpheum itself, in the middle of the audience, so he could see Alex and the band well enough, but far enough off to the side that they wouldn’t be able to see him. Julie and Reggie were at the edge of the stage, singing back to back, while Luke was looking on at Julie with unfiltered adoration, and Alex— _Alex_. Alex was behind his drum set, looking beautiful and carefree and not like he was going to leave everything he ever knew after that one performance.

And suddenly, the drums stopped and Alex stood up, a slight smile on his face and looking more confident than he’d ever seen him, and he started to sing. “ _Whatever happens, even if I’m the last standing, I’mma stand tall, I’mma stand tall._ ” That was it, only a few short lines, but his heart swelled with pride anyway. _God, he looks beautiful,_ he thought. Here, performing, was probably the happiest Willie had ever seen him, and the most confident, too; instead of looking like he was questioning his every move, Alex looked like he was ready to take on anyone and anything in his way - and it didn’t hurt that he looked _fine_ in that suit.

His tears forgotten, he stopped and watched them perform, a small smile spreading across his face. He couldn’t help it, they all looked so happy. Alex looked beautiful, Reggie looked like he was having the time of his life performing with his friends, and Julie and Luke were singing and looking at each other like they’d hung the stars in the sky.

But, all too soon, they finished their performance and stood together to take their bows, all of them beaming like they just did that one thing they were meant to do. And, hadn’t they? If playing the Orpheum _was_ their unfinished business, then this was really what they lived (and died) to do.

And as they took their bows, he couldn’t help but think how easy it would be to just teleport right in front of the stage, dead center, to show Alex that he was there. That he saw him do his last (and biggest) performance of his life _and_ afterlife and was _so_ proud of him. To say goodbye.

But before he could, Alex, Luke, and Reggie poofed away themselves, leaving him alone in the Orpheum with an applause louder than he had ever heard at the Hollywood Ghost Club.

That was it.

Alex was gone forever, crossed over to the place normal spirits that didn’t become ghosts went when they died. And he knew, he _knew_ it beat Alex not existing at all, that he was _alive_ \- as much as a ghost could be. But.

But now he was all alone, arguably more than he was before Alex appeared in his (after)life.

His heart shattered into tiny fragments, pieces so small that he didn’t think he could ever replace, and he sobbed again.

And before he knew it, he was back in the back room of the Hollywood Ghost Club.

* * *

He spent the rest of the night and most of the rest of the next day wishing more than anything that he could just poof out of Caleb’s club, away from that place and Caleb himself, and he could finally be _free_. But ever since he came back after Alex’s performance, Caleb had him on the strictest lockdown he’d ever seen - he was forced to be on the floor all night and late into the morning, and once all the lifers filtered out, Caleb locked him in a room that was magicked so that he couldn’t teleport out. Even then, Caleb checked on him every hour and had one of his trusted goons outside the door at all times. Every time he walked in on him while he was crying, he didn’t say a word, just scoffed at him before slamming the door again. On the off occasion that he wasn’t crying at that moment, Caleb just looked down on him and asked if he regretted going to Alex’s performance, if he regretted helping him, and every time he answered no. Every “no” gave the same response as the sobbing, so eventually, all it took was one derisive glare from Caleb and a defiant one from himself for Caleb to get the door slammed.

After several of these mini interrogations (nine or ten, by his count), however, Caleb didn’t show up for the next one, or the next, or the next. When he banged on the door, all he got was the guard outside saying that Caleb was “busy.”

With the door slammed in his face for what had to be the dozenth time, he fell back against the wall behind him, nearly pulling his hair out of his head. He didn’t cry this time - his tears dried up hours ago - but he felt like he had to do something, _anything_ , to get out of the accursed room. Caleb had obviously given up on him, leaving him to rot in some forgotten room in the back of the club, and he couldn’t be with Alex anymore, but maybe he could at least be away from this place and be _free_.

A thought struck him, and he immediately stilled. _What if he crossed over, like Alex?_ He’d been a ghost for decades, years before Alex and Luke and Reggie even died, and he never figured out what his unfinished business was. But then again, he never _wanted_ to. Before he met Alex, he was perfectly happy to spend his afterlife skating through lifers and in museums during the day and dance in the club during the nights. But then Alex came crashing through his life, and suddenly he wanted _more_ , he knew he could have _more_. He had _love_ , now, and he didn’t want to go back.

He wracked his brain for anything, any little thing that could be his unfinished business, but nothing came. While Alex, Luke, and Reggie’s unfinished business was obvious, with the band and their missed Orpheum performance, he had nothing like that. His one passion while he was alive was skating, he died doing that, and then he spent his afterlife skating where he never could when he was alive. There was never something _more_ he wanted to do with his life, one thing he always _knew_ he was meant to do, not like Alex.

He wanted to scream, to shout, to kick everything in this godforsaken room over until it was all in pieces. He couldn’t do the first two, so he settled on destroying everything. One perk - well, the _only_ perk - of Caleb using his magic to lock him the room was that he was solid, and he could kick the hell out of anything he wanted. He swung his fist at the wall, prepared for the pain that one got from punching concrete walls, but his fist passed straight through, throwing him off balance and causing him to end up in a pile on the floor. _Caleb’s magic wasn’t working._ The only way that was possible was if Caleb was gone, his energy focused on something else. He could leave, poof out of there and never have to look back. He could be _free._

A laugh escaped his throat, excited and disbelieving. He teleported out of that room without a second thought, ready to be anywhere but there.

Although outside Julie Molina’s garage, where she used to practice with Alex and Luke and Reggie, was one of the last places he wanted to be.

The irrational, overwhelming anger from the fact that Alex - sweet, wonderful, sarcastic Alex - was gone came back worse than before, and he kicked the garage door. He hadn’t expected his foot to connect with the door, but of course, with his luck, it connected anyway with a resounding _thump_. Noise he hadn't even noticed from inside the studio stopped suddenly and he cursed.

He was about to poof out again when another ghost poofed out to him and his brain short-circuited.

The ghost wasn’t facing him, but from the back he could see his neat blond hair, dark jean jacket with hints of the pink shirt underneath peaking through the holes of the jacket, and a dark strap of some kind of bag looped around his back.

It felt like someone had knocked his breath out of him and he couldn’t draw a proper breath anymore. He _had_ to be hallucinating, there was no way it was— 

The ghost turned around, revealing _Alex’s_ very much real (and now slightly shocked) face.

No, no, _no_. It couldn’t be Alex, because that would mean he hadn’t crossed over after his Orpheum performance, and that meant he was going to _die_ from Caleb’s jolts, and he wouldn’t be able to save him— 

Hallucination Alex wrapped him in a tight hug and it hit him - he hadn’t crossed over. He wrapped his arms around him just as tight and buried his face in his shoulder.

“You didn’t cross over,” he said miserably.

“Don’t sound too disappointed about that,” Alex said, and he could hear his smile and soft sarcasm. He didn’t say anything - he didn’t know if he could - and it was almost as if Alex sensed what he was thinking. Alex pulled out of the hug and looked him in the eyes, his hands cupping his face. “I’m okay,” he said softly. “Julie saved us. We didn't cross over, but she got rid of Caleb’s stamps for us somehow.”

Willie threw his arms around Alex again, tighter this time, and he felt more tears streaming down his face. “You’re okay,” he whispered, a laugh bubbling up in his throat.

“I’m okay,” Alex whispered back, a promise in his words. 

When he opened his eyes, he was met with Alex’s face awash in a golden glow. A golden glow that was coming from…himself? 

He pulled back from the hug and looked down at his arms, which were, in fact, the source of the weird glow. “Alex?”

Alex laughed softly and grabbed his arm. “Look.”

As he looked down, Caleb’s stamp shimmered into existence on his arm before floating up, off his skin and into the air, where it dissolved. _It was gone._ He was finally, completely free. No more strings.

He folded up Alex’s hand in his and leaned his head on his shoulder feeling lighter than he had since he’d taken Caleb’s stamp. “So, maybe we _do_ have some magic, hotdog.” He looked over at Alex with a teasing smile and a wink and laughed at Alex’s blush and embarrassed smile.

“Yeah, we do,” Alex said, leaning his head on top of Willie’s. And suddenly, all was right in the world. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and I hope y'all enjoyed!! maybe leave a kudos or a comment if you did?
> 
> If you want more of this prompt, go check out [the fic Blue wrote](https://willies-skateboard.tumblr.com/post/638360648682782720/on-a-ray-of-light) from it herself!


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